Papers and reports

The most important way to spread your own scientific results is by writing reports and papers. In this respect, there is no difference between scientific articles and for example lab reports – they all intend to convey a message in an interesting way to to the readers. The papers also make up your portfolio that you can present when you apply for jobs or grants for new research projects.

It is important to express yourself clearly and interestingly. The purpose of the study should be clear and unambiguous and the paper should be organised in a logical way, so that the readers do not have to scroll back and forth to follow what you have done. The text should be so comprehensive that you can read it from beginning to end and understand what you did, how you did it, what the results were and what the results mean. Last but not least, it should be possible to repeat your investigations based on your description.

There are some general rules for how an essay should be designed to meet the readability requirements summarised above. These rules are described here and are the ones you will follow when writing papers and laboratory reports at the Master of Science and Bachelor of Science Programmes in Pharmacy. Your teacher will provide you with more detailed instructions of what applies to each writing assignment.

Read more about

• Title
• Table of content
• Abstract
• Introduction and purpose
• Materials and methods
• Results
• Discussion and conclusions
• Ackknowledgements
• Citing your sources in the text
• Appendices, tables and figures
• Formatting, grammar and spelling

Back to the Guide to written and oral communication